Public colleges should not bypass local land use boards

View full sizeEd Murray/The Star-LedgerA worker prepares to paint an area inside the Mac Mahon Student Center, a six-story, 90,000-square-foot building designed to expand student services on the campus of Saint Peter's University in Jersey City.

Just because something is deemed legal doesn’t necessarily make it right.

Yes, local land use boards sometimes hold applicants "hostage" or use authority inappropriately to extract benefits separate from the applicant. That’s terribly unfair and should end. Extending the 1972 Supreme Court ruling to private colleges, however, isn’t the answer. Doing so makes bad public policy even worse. Will hospitals be next?

When institutions use municipal services, such as police, fire and rescue squads, it’s only fair that proposals go through the local land use process.

I’m all for cutting red tape, but bypassing local land use boards is a slippery slope.